10/15/2008

The Golden Formula not working

Earlier I posted about the Golden Formula that brought us the Olympic medals. It was working or starting to work. But the flaws of such a formula are starting to reveal itself. It is a short sighted formula. It depends on foreign talents that can be bought but can go away as quickly as they come. Foreign talents that come to us in this way have no commitment to us. They are not one of us. Unlike our own children who are born and bred here. Even paying them peanuts or not paying them anything, they will still be here.
We need to rethink this parasitic principle that we can live off the talents of other countries. it is poaching in one way. And we are happy when we poached other people's citizens but obviously we would not be happy if others do that to us.
Now the table tennis fiasco is beginning to tell us to wake up and look inward at our own children. For they are all we have to depend on in the long run. And this does not apply only to sports. It is applicable to all industries. Take care of your children first, look after them well. Don't be infatuated by foreigners. They come smiling when you put money into their pockets. But they will not hesitate to turn around and slap you on their way out.
We need to be more self sufficient in our own talent pool. Depending on foreign talents can only be a short term measure and opportunistic. Come to the crunch, the citizens are all you got. Don't neglect your own children.
Did I here that we are going in a big way to get more medals and more foreign talents?

19 comments:

Hi Redbean, I agree with you entirely. Instead of spending lots of money to "acquire" talents from foreign land to repreent your country, why not use this money to cultivate and groom the local potential talents. I am certain that if given the proper incentives and encouragement, the locals will be as good as these imported talents who are proving to be very undependable.

Shame isn't it! We can and will never be real first world, unless we develop our own youth and invest in them.

Buying foreign talent is just cosmetics for ILLUSION.

Look at what is happening with some Croatian football players. They still choose their home rather than here, malu lah. No amount $$$$ nor Passport can keep them ... compare with FW, we treat them with some distaste.

We should invest in our own youth who show potential and train them under talented coaches, and pay them and no need to give away passports.

TIME and MONEY will give result.WE want best athele, we must let them focus on their selected sports.

In my opinion too many parents in Singapore think that the only avenue to success in life is through the univesity and the financial sectors. Choices like fashion, arts and sports are quite often discouraged.

Redbean, your thinking is myopic and smacks of xenophobia. Local born and bred talents can leave just as easily as foreigners. Singapore's size and resources limitations are here to stay. Born and bred citizens are exposed to them just as much as foreigners are. They will scoot off if given a better deal elsewhere. That is human nature. Such behavior is not limited to just the foreign talents.

The Chinese coash of Singapores Women Table Tennis team resigned yesterday. He was offered a new contract which he rejected, calling it 'insulting and insincere'. I guess foreign coaches and players are finding out the brutal truth of Singapore's sporting rulers.

> We need to rethink this parasitic principle that we can live off the talents of other countries. <

No. In fact we should increase it.

I (and I suspect most people) outsource nearly everything which allows me to survive, prevail and be happy. All my Asian food comes form foreigners. I have white goods and gizmos made by Chinese. A lot of my software was written by people in Bangalore and Russia. My computer was designed in America and contains components made in diverse countries Mexico, China, Japan, Korea, Singapore, Vietnam etc.

And the list goes on.

If we didn't have foreign talent, we couldn't not have the high standard of living we all enjoy. And life would really SUCK.

somehow i got this feeling that you people are thinking that i am anti foreign talent. what i don't agree is the way we are going about it, engineering to embrace ft even to the extent of playing down on our own talent.

we need ft and local talent. but we have to know that local talent are our very own and are emotionally tie to us and this piece of rock. we have to do more for our own then simply running mad about ft.

Like You, I have nothing against foreigners, but the Government Policy of importing them for frivolous purpose of gaining glories in sports for Singapore is downright distasteful to me. Such glories serve little or no meaning to our livelihoods, it's just plain vainglory!

I am of the opinion that we must be more than self sufficient in basic neccessities before going for glories. Glory is vanity, it is to be pursued only when there are no other pressing needs and duties. It is enhancement to living and not essential to survival.

And the crux of the issue really is that we do not have sufficient space and natural resources for ourselves.

You are very right to say(insist if I may say) the locals be groomed to their best before we import foreigners, specifically sports talents if I may add. We obviously can live without them.

can't dispute with You that Singapore lacks the basic ingredients for self sufficiencies, NOW.

Food, water and fuel were not exactly short in the Sixties and before. Thanks to the British and the Dutch, we had(have) the biggest oil refinery in the World.

We were having plentiful fresh agriculture, poultry and marine produces despite no large scale cultivations in the earlier days.As an aside, even human reproduction was healthy. And I like to add Singaporeans then hardly had to consume frozen, preserved foodstuff, especially the former. Very few owned fridges much less freezers.

Water is one item that we were never short except when droughts happened. Water shortage was due to lack of construction of reservoirs. Again land was plentiful and population was sparse.

BUT, some people were not happy with just plain simple livings and human relations(family, social, clanship, friendship and work). They wanted modernization, industrialization and commercialization. In short, they wanted wealth and material livings.

There was absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to be rich. It was one track, single minded pursue of materialism(including fame and glory) at the expenses of humanities and spiritualism(human emotions) that was unwholesome.

Today, material pursuits have reached a very damaging and ominous stage in our society.

Singaporeans are rich, few in the World and Singaporeans, including me, will dispute this claim. But, are we happy compare to less rich or even poor countries like Thailand, Bhutan, India, China and many many other countries? Are our Leaders by and large respected by the citizens? Are our leaders loving(care and concern) their citizens? Wow! Too many questions brother! Please pardon me.

We are not short of anything now, are we happy? Answer at your discretion.

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